Thursday, September 30, 2004

"If you did 43252003274489856000 random turns on a cube, assuming you start from a scrambled state, then the chance of seeing the solved state by luck is

1-(43252003274489855999/43252003274489856000)^43252003274489856000

which is a close approximation of lim n->infinity 1-[(n-1)/n]^n

If you work out this limit you get 1-(1/e) which is approximately a 63% chance.

I know this is probably getting a little too deep into probabilities and stuff, but I just think it's cool that even if you did the exact same number of moves as there are combinations to the cube, there's still only a 63% that your cube will solve by luck."

I think the numbers speak for themselves. You really need to have a system to reach the solved state!

Tuesday, September 28, 2004

I was sitting here, about to write about something that wasn't about Rubik's cubes, when a cube-related email arrived in my inbox. It was from someone who'd just learnt how to solve the cube.

This, in itself, is pretty exciting to me because I love cubes. But the most exciting thing for me is that he'd learnt how to do it from my beginner cube solution! :)

I've received other emails fom people who've learnt the cube from my page. It's really great to hear that people are getting into cubing, and also that my instructions mostly make sense. I say "mostly" because I also get emails from people who I've managed to confuse.

There's been a definite revival in the cube's popularity in the past few years. It's not at the dizzying heights of the early 1980s, but there's clearly a resurgence. Why is this? I think it's largely thanks to the internet actually, particularly sites such as the international speedcubing group and speedcubing.com which have put speedcubers from all around the world in touch with each other.

BTW, for non-cubers who are reading this, I feel I should offer some evidence for my previous assertion that there's been a resurgence in the cube's popularity. What I find quite compelling are all the international cube competitions over the past year and a bit. The reason this is significant is because, prior to August 2003, there had been a 21 years absence of international cube competitions!! :(

Saturday, September 25, 2004

I re-stickered my main speedcube recently. The regular stickers that come with Rubik's Cube are usually pretty craptacular. Most speedcubers find that the stickers rarely last longer than a couple of weeks before they start looking terrible. Sometimes they don't even last beyond the first week.

Options for restickering

There are various things people have experimented with when it comes to re-stickering, eg. nail polish, scale model paint, buying replacement stickers from rubiks.com. My preferred option is to use coloured electrical tape. It looks pretty good and the tape lasts significantly longer than those manifestly-unfit-for-purpose-lame-excuse-for-a-sticker things that come with cube. Also, once you buy 6 rolls of tape in the 6 colours, you'll probably have enough tape to re-sticker all the cubes you're ever likely to own.

Colours

In Australia, I was able to find electrical tape in 5 of the 6 colours: red, blue, yellow, green and white. I couldn't find orange anywhere. Fortunately though, the orange stickers on my previous main speedcube had not worn as much as the other colours so I left the existing stickers.

I left these rolls of tape in Australia so I've had to buy more over here. I went to a hardware store the other day and to my surprise they had orange! They did not, however, have white. This is okay though because I'm confident I'll be able to get white somewhere else. The main thing was that I found orange, which is traditionally the most difficult colour to find. For the benefit of any other speedcubers in search of orange electrical tape, here are the details of the one I bought.

Method

Re-stickering using electrical tape is a rather tedious because all 54 squares need to be cut and placed individually. Also, the electrical tape is a couple of millimetres wider than a standard Rubik's Cube sticker process which makes it even more tedious to cut out.

Regular Rubik's Cube stickers have rounded corners which look much nicer than completely pointy corners. I can't be bothered to round all 216 corners of my homemade stickers, so as a compromise I just cut straight across the point to remove it:

I only remove a tiny little bit, maybe only 0.5 millimetres (about 0.02 inches), but it's enough to give the impression that the stickers have rounded corners.

Something else I do when restickering is I only pull of the clear laminated layer of the original sticker. I leave the coloured paper layer. I do this because the black plastic shows through too much if you put the electrical tape stickers directly onto it. As any speedcuber knows, the stickers need to have enough colour to be quite distinguishable otherwise it's no good for speecubing. Putting the tape stickers over the paper layer of the original stickers results in a much stronger colour.

If this is not an option because some of the stickers have completely fallen off then something else that works is to put a layer of white eletrical tape stickers on and then put the real colour stickers over the top. Whatever you do, you need to have something in between the black plastic and the top layer of the electrical tape stickers.

Friday, September 24, 2004

"There aren't any Platonic solids with 7 sides never mind cubes with 7 sides. (The Platonic solids are the regular solids - there are 5 of them the cube is one and the octahedron, its dual, is another, the dodecahedron is one and the icosahedron, its dual, is another and the last is the tetrahedron, which is its own dual. The Megaminx is a dodecahedron, the pyraminx is a tetrahedron and the cube is a cube.)"

There are lots of very smart mathematician types in the speedcubing group so I'm not surprised I got an answer to the 7-sided puzzle comment. The answer makes sense of course and I now feel a bit silly for not having realised it when I made the initial comment!

Thursday, September 23, 2004

I did a search in Google News for "rubik's cube" to see if there were any interesting cube articles. There was a long list, but many of the articles were not actually about cubes, they just happened to be using 'Rubik's Cube' as a metaphor.

Here's one that caught my attention: "It's a seven-sided Rubik's Cube, a problem with no solution." I didn't bother to read the article beyond this sentence because it clearly wasn't actually about cubes, but I thought it was interesting that cubes are so frequently used as metaphors.

It also started me thinking about whether there is a seven-sided Rubiks-like puzzle (I couldn't think of one). If there is, it's obviously not a "cube" as the author of the article implies. Perhaps the writer should have said "It's like a Rubik's Cube that's had a single edge reversed, a problem with no solution."*

* For any speedcubers reading this, yes obviously there is a solution which is to rip the piece out and fix it, but I think you know what I mean (ie. it can't be fixed in the usual way).

Sunday, September 19, 2004

I'm still stuffing around with the new blog site design. I keep changing my mind about what I want so it'll probably be a while till I get it up. In the meantime, I've purplified the current template because purple makes things better.

Saturday, September 18, 2004

If someone searches for you in Google and there are no results, do you really exist?

This was the topic of a conversation a while ago between Peter, our friend Lisa, and myself.

Lisa is an astronomer and has published zillions of academic papers so she is extremely Googlable. I can be found in Google if you combine my first name and anything to do with Rubik's cubes (eg. jasmine + cube, jasmine + rubiks). Peter did not have a website at the time of the conversation, but has since created one and so is now Googlable.

After some discussion, Peter, Lisa and I concluded that being Googlable is how you know you exist.*

Based on this logic, I tried to Google my former housemate, Tristan. We lived together for several years and used to work for the same employer as well. I've been wanting to get in touch with him just to say hello and see how he's going, but all the contact details I have for him are obsolete. And unfortunately, he's not in Google, which leaves me wondering - does he still exist??

(* Before anyone gets offended, I should point out that we weren't entirely serious.)

Friday, September 17, 2004

A guy brought a CD to the gym the other day that had some excellent workout music. He told me it was DJ Sasha. I have no idea who this is, but I certainly like it. I like it as workout music that is. It's not the sort of thing to which I'd normally listen.

When he put the music on, I noticed that I immediately fell into the rhythm of the beat. This meant that I actually ended up going a little faster than usual (which is a good thing obviously). I noticed that everyone else started going a little faster as well to keep with the beat. Looks like this guy is doing everyone a favour!

Thursday, September 16, 2004

Several weeks ago I had an intense cubing session using Jess Bonde's cube timer (which by the way is awesome). I was averaging just under 40 seconds. I haven't cubed much since then and I was wondering if I had just been having a really good day and actually my average was still low-to-mid-forties. So, I did a few of solves yesterday to check my times. And what was the result? 39 to 41 seconds! Yay for a 40 second average!

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

If you are a member of the online speedsolving group then, no, you won't be confused. In fact, you'll be thinking "that's so easy". However, if you are not a speedcuber you may have a different reaction. Peter, who is not a cuber, tells me that it hurts his brain just thinking about it.

Okay, enough babbling. Time for pictures! Check out the majesty of the 3x3x5...

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

After having fun with the Sheena Gothskull game that Peter wrote about in his blog, I was inspired to purchase some Altoids confectionery. Note to the Altoids marketing department: your plan of having a cool website to entice the kids to buy your product has totally worked on me.

I checked out what was on offer at the supermarket and saw a variety of mints (peppermint, spearmint and wintergreen), a variety of sours (apple, tangerine and citrus) and a few different gums. FYI, there's a full list of flavours on their website. I prefer fruity lollies (or "candy" as they say here in the US), so I chose a sour (tangerine).

I have to say that I quite like these lollies. They remind me of lollies I used to buy in Australia when I was little. Now I'm keen to try all the sours. Mmmm... lollies!

Sunday, September 12, 2004

Maukie is an online interactive kitty for you to entertain. She will watch with interest as you move the cursor around the screen, and bat the little arrow if you get it too close to her. She'll purr if you tickle her tummy and miaow if you pat her head. So cute!

Peter and I went to a very nice restaurant in Georgetown called 1789. Everything about it was great - the food, the service, the ambience. It's quite pricey though, so it's definitely a special occasion restaurant.

Friday, September 10, 2004

There's a site called Rate My Kitten where you see zillions of photos of adorable fuzzballs. You can rate their cuteness if you like, but I just go there to look at the pictures (although I do give pretty much all of them a 9 or 10 out of 10 for cuteness!)

Thursday, September 09, 2004

I've been working on a new site design for this blog. At the moment I'm just using one of the BlogSpot templates, as you would know if you'd looked at many BlogSpot blogs. I always planned to create my own design, it's just taken me a few weeks to get around to it.

Anyway, I've almost finished writing the HTML. Now I just need to incorporate all the blogger code into it and it will be good to go. Stay tuned...

Wednesday, September 08, 2004

I put in a huge order with rubiks.com last week. The site said it would take 7-10 working days but it only took 6. I got some really exciting stuff including a 3x3x4, a 3x3x5, and a fusion+. Note that the 3x3x4 and the 3x3x5 I got were the semi-functional ones on the rubiks.com site. The fully functional ones are very expensive and I'm not sufficiently obsessed to spend that sort of money on Rubik's cubes.

As the 3x3x4 and the 3x3x5 weren't the fully functional versions, they were pretty easy to solve. Just need to apply the same algorithms as a for solving a regular 3x3x3 cube. Ton had a fully functioning 3x3x5 at US Nationals so I was able to have a go of one then. It was definitely more difficult.

These extended cubes look totally wacky when scrambled, especially the 3x3x4 and the 3x3x5. I shall post some pictures later.

Tuesday, September 07, 2004

I was back at the gym tonight - my 12th time in 16 days. This is extremely hardore for me. I think I've been to the gym more in the past two weeks fortnight than in the past two years. Dearie me I've been slack. I wonder how long this enthusiasm for fitess will last?

Monday, September 06, 2004

I've started getting back into the gym recently. With me, fitness is kind of an all-or-nothing affair. By this I mean that I'm either going 4-5 times a week, or I'm going 4-5 times a year. It'd probably be better if I just went a couple of times a week and did this consistently for years and years, but I just don't have the commitment for such a long term fitness plan. So, if I am feeling super-keen I always take advantage of this and go as often as possible, which for the moment has meant 5 times/week for the past two weeks.

The first few visits, and the first one in particular, were killers. I didn't even do much, but after several years of not visiting the gym, I was pretty unfit. :( Now, after a fortnight of regular workouts, I'm doing much better. :)

I had been been finding the cardio machines especially un-fun. I had just assumed it was because I was too unfit to hack it, but yesterday I discovered that it was actually just because I was too bored. What am I talking about? Well, let me explain. Yesterday I took my trusty little iPAQ 3970 along with the intention of entertaining myself while on the exercise bike. This meant I could do stuff like read the news, read email, and play games. I found that I was able to spend twice as long on the cardio machines and I felt completely fine. So I concluded that I was more bored than unfit! ;)

Peter asked if people at the gym thought the iPAQ was weird. Nobody seemed to notice or care. Most people there had discmans or iPods, I don't think this is much different. Actually, I think iPAQs are better!!

Saturday, September 04, 2004

A place which was far less impressive is where we went to lunch today - Twist (on M Street in Georgetown). What was so bad about it? Well, let me start with the coffee.

As I picked up the spoon to stir the coffee, I noticed that the spoon was so dirty that the handle was sticky to touch. So, I put the spoon down and sipped the coffee. It was luke-warm. Hmmm. Not a good start.

Then, after drinking almost cold coffee, and waiting and waiting and waiting for our food, the waiter informed us that not only had he forgotten to give our order to the kitchen, but he'd also lost the piece of paper he'd written our order on!

At this point we obviously considered ditching the place and looking for somewhere else to eat. Against our better judgment we decided to stay. So, we gave the waiter our order a second time. (To be fair, I should mention that the waiter gave us some bread and dip after the stuff up.)

Eventually we got our food. I had ordered a chicken salad, but it was so drenched with dressing that it was more like dressing soup with some lettuce leaves and chicken floating in it. If I hadn't been so hungry - especially after waiting so long for the food - I probably would have left most of it.

The place had a relaxed atmosphere and prices were quite reasonable. All-in-all, a good place to eat. I'm definitely going back. In fact, I'm keen to try the weekend brunch options soon - maybe even tomorrow !

According to their website, on Sundays they have a harpist play traditional Irish music to provide "a relaxing atmosphere". Sounds like fun. :)

Thursday, September 02, 2004

I remember a time when admiring a celebrity meant you might purchase an item of clothing you saw them wear on magazine cover, or style your hair in a similar fashion. All pretty harmless stuff really.

Now in the age of plastic surgery, fans are able to take their obsessions one step further. One very drastic step further that is.

There's a show on MTV called I want a famous face. I think you can guess what it's about. The title of the show is pretty self explanatory. Here's a snippet from the website:

"How far would you go to look like a celebrity? Nose job here? Nip & tuck there? The people you are about to meet went that far and beyond. They have endured painful and sometimes risky reconstructive surgery to look like their favorite celebrity.

The subjects of this documentary series decided on their own to get plastic surgery. MTV then asked to document their journey. MTV did not pay for any surgery performed on these subjects."